"Oh no, that's nonsense; he never pays any attention to me at all. He doesn't talk about me to Aunt Netty or to the others."
"Perhaps he has made up his mind."
"Yes," she said slowly, "that's just it. He has made up his mind. He thinks I'm a—well, just a lay figure."
I said I was certain she would not be left out if he was writing that kind of book.
She laughed happily—so happily that I imagined her looking radiant and felt that the lamp was lit. I asked her why she was laughing.
"I'm laughing," she said, "because in one sense my novel is over—with the ordinary happy, conventional ending—the reason I wanted to talk to you to-day was to tell you——"
At that moment Mrs. Lennox joined us. Miss Brandon's voice passed quite naturally into another key, as she said:
"Here is Aunt Netty."
"I have been looking for you everywhere," said Mrs. Lennox, "I've got a headache, and we've so many letters to write. When we've done them you can watch me doing my patience."
She said these last words as if she was conferring an undeserved reward on a truant child.